As rich countries hoard potential COVID-19 vaccines, poorer nations will have to rely on tail ends
One year on, as the world continues to grapple with COVID-19, there is some hope that vaccines will bring back some normalcy to the world.
A lot of major pharmaceutical industry players have created a vaccine for COVID-19, including companies like Johnson & Johnson, Moderna and Pfizer. Scientists from the University of Cambridge and other disease control centres across the world have also played a key role in getting making the vaccine.
But this hope of a vaccine is also accompanied by a race- a race for getting the vaccine first. And in this race, the rich countries of the world are already far ahead of their poorer peers.
Health activists across the globe already warned about this possibility when the prospects of a successful vaccine came to light. Many voiced their opinions that without stronger attempts at holding political, pharmaceutical and health leaders accountable, vaccines will be hoarded by rich countries in an unseemly race to inoculate their populations first.
Wealthy nations at the top in vaccine acquisition
Many wealthy nations have already placed excessive orders with pharmaceutical companies. A study by the Global Health Innovation Center, Duke University has found that rich countries have snapped up billions of doses of potential coronavirus vaccines, leaving poor countries without enough supply for years to come, with some poor countries without the capability of vaccinating their people till as late as 2024.
It also stated that high and middle-income countries have already purchased 3.8 billion doses, with options for 5 billion more.
Canada and the United Kingdom, for instance, have already reserved more than enough potential vaccines to cover their entire populations. Middle-income countries, including Brazil and India, also have secured the rights to enough vaccines to cover about half of their populations.
This is being done despite efforts by the WHO through its Covid-19 Vaccines Global Access Facility, or Covax, that aims to develop and equitably distribute a vaccine to, both rich and poor, countries. More than 150 countries signed the agreement with the aim(s) of:
- Development and distribution of 2 billion doses of vaccine,
- Discouraging hoarding, and
- Focusing on vaccinating high-risk population in every signatory state first.
Many wealthy countries, including the European Union, Canada, and Japan, have also joined the initiative. Under the plan, both rich and poor countries pool money to offer manufacturers volume guarantees for potential vaccines. This cooperative approach for vaccine development and distribution was devised to seriously discourage hoarding and focus on vaccinating the people of all nations irrespective of their economic standing.
Violation of international vaccine equity agreements
Despite most of the rich countries being signatories to Covax, they are still buying directly from the manufacturers. These deals between countries and drug manufacturers, known as advance purchase agreements, are undermining cooperative efforts to secure enough doses and equitably distribute them among all.
The United States is NOT a signatory to Covax, due to the Trump administration’s discontent with the WHO. It has its own agreements to get 455 million doses- for a population of 328 million. Chinese President Xi Jinping has, however, promised to share any Covid-19 vaccine originating from China with African countries — but only once immunization has been completed in China.
Making a vaccine isn’t easy
Doctors, scientists, and pharmaceutical companies around the world have been working tirelessly to make a vaccine as soon as possible, without undermining the process. And for the first time in human history, we will be getting a vaccine for a disease, hitherto unknown, in just about a year and a half, thanks to advanced technology and our encounters with SARS and MERS diseases before.
To give you a basic idea for the timeline of vaccines’ creation, a vaccine for smallpox took about 100 years, for measles it took around 10 years, and the search for a vaccine for AIDS is still on since 1986! So, it isn’t an overstatement that we will get a vaccine for COVID-19 in record time.
But scientists have not offered an estimate as to how many doses can be created in a year. They do, however, say that to inoculate the world population of 7.8 billion people, manufacturing of a vaccine will need to be stepped up by combined global efforts.
Road ahead
While it is true that no country can afford to buy doses of every potential vaccine candidate, many poor ones can’t afford to place speculative bets at all. About 85% of the world’s population live in developing countries. And most low-income countries have little choice but to rely on initiatives like Covax, which automatically must compete with big players to secure access to vaccines.
It is high time that rich and powerful countries stop flexing their deep financial pockets and work collectively with small and developing nations to take humanity out of the hole that is the COVID-19 pandemic. That seems like the only successful way for everyone to succeed in such tumultuous times.
When do you think your country will get the vaccine for COVID-19? Tell us in the comments below.
Views are the writer’s own and do not necessarily represent the viewpoint of Volunteers Collective.
Written by Aakash Sharma. He is a member and the editor at Volunteers Collective. Aakash is a student of English Literature from the University of Delhi who writes with a focus on global politics, socio-economic issues and literary-cultural phenomenons.
